<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>I Will Be Free by ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24360631">I Will Be Free</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeLittleInfamy/pseuds/ByTheAngell'>ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Shadowhunters Tarot Series [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shadowhunters (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Introspection, Shadowhunters Tarot Challenge</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:00:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>627</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24360631</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeLittleInfamy/pseuds/ByTheAngell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jace spends much of his life trying to be exactly who he's expected to be... until he meets someone who doesn't have any expectations and finds unexpected liberation in simply being himself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clary Fray/Jace Wayland</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Shadowhunters Tarot Series [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664110</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Shadowhunters Tarot Challenge</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Will Be Free</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by the collection's eleventh card: The Moon. An abandoned boat sits rocking gently in the lazy waves lapping against the shore of a cove. The moon rises high on the horizon as two wolves sit singing to her in the distance.</p><p>The Moon asks you to embrace your wild. Which is why it is fitting to so commonly be represented in part by a wolf or a dog, howling. Animals have no preconceived notions or self-consciousness. They don’t care about how they look to others. They don’t feel embarrassment or shame. The Moon asks you to be more like them, to dig into the things that you bury down deep out of fear of looking stupid or because of ego. Let yourself go a little mad and howl at the moon.<br/> </p><p>And (as a bonus challenge I set for myself) focused on <a href="https://twitter.com/SERAPHERZ/status/1159791401342652421?s=20">this stunning Shadowhunter's Tarot set's The Moon:</a> Jace Herondale</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jace knows how others look at him. Valentine’s son. An experiment with unnatural abilities. The foolish boy who activated the Soul Sword. The not-quite-a-Lightwood who will always remain an outlier in the family that took him in. The wasted wish of Raziel. A Herondale who took the life of the one remaining relative he had, no matter what influence he’d been under.</p><p>The Golden Boy who is anything but.</p><p>There isn’t a point in time Jace isn’t aware of the act he needs to put on around any given group of people. The perfect child, following every instruction to a T, never slipping up for even a second and hiding every flare of emotion he feels as a child growing up with Valentine. The perfect soldier at the Institute, a protective brother and parabatai around Isabelle and Alec, but just aloof enough that they don’t worry about him. A fun but noncommittal hookup for everyone he’s ever been interested in, not allowing himself to properly date dare he come too close to actual <em>feelings</em> for anyone he would only hurt in the end. A different mask for every moment of every day, until he’s alone at night and barely knows how to act around himself.</p><p>...until he meets Clary.</p><p>Clary, who is so unapologetically herself at every turn no matter what others think or say about her, whether behind her back or even brazenly to her face. He watches her stand up to people who could make her life a living hell and walk away with her head held high. He watches her laugh, cry, and criticize to her heart’s content in the moment of whatever she’s feeling.</p><p>He watches her care for him, fall for him, and hold on to that reaction just as stubbornly as all her others no matter how hard he tries to keep her at a distance the way he does everyone else who comes into his life.</p><p>And he watches himself, in turn, become more himself. At first he isn’t sure who that even is or what it entails, but the more time he spends with Clary the more he figures it out, one moment at a time, because every moment he’s with her he lowers the mask a little more. His walls begin to crumble, stone by carefully laid stone until he isn’t only willing to allow her in, but others around him as well. Alec, Isabelle… they can all sense in him the change he doesn’t realize is happening until it’s already underway.</p><p>He’s happier. He’s not putting on an act because he realizes Clary holds no expectations of him. All she knows is what he shows her, and though he has a bit of bravado at the beginning to correct most of it, he realizes with surprise, is just <em>him</em>. He doesn’t care what people think of him when he’s by her side, falling on his face on an ice skating rink or tinkering behind the piano on a melody that reminds him of her… of <em>them</em>.</p><p>He isn’t afraid of looking foolish because he knows that, to her at least, it doesn’t matter. He can embarrass himself time and time again and begins to realize without a single doubt that she’ll think no less of him.</p><p>It catches like wildfire. The more risks he takes around Clary, the more he’s willing to follow his heart and be true to himself instead of the voices that guided him all these years, the more he sees those around him follow suit. He’s always set a standard and that doesn’t change now - all that chances are the standards he sets. He works just as hard and is just as loyal, but this time it’s without pretense.</p><p>He’s never felt freer.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>(Find me on  <a href="http://bytheangell.tumblr.com">Tumblr</a> and also on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/By_The_Angell">Twitter</a>! &lt;3 )</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>